


Of Mittens

by katikat



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:10:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13437438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katikat/pseuds/katikat
Summary: Mac’s hands ache and his brain is all fuzzy and he just wants to sleep. Oh, and Jack’s an old goat (according to Matty). Mac’s POV. (Unbeta'd)





	Of Mittens

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff. Sweet, teeth-rotting fluff. Coda to episode 214.

Mac’s sitting on the examination table in the Phoenix Foundation’s infirmary, dangling his feet and humming softly under his breath. He’s not exactly high, just…  _fuzzy_ around the edges, yes. They shot him full of painkillers to change the dressing on his burned hands and now he feels like he has the mysteries of the universe at his fingertips, all he has to do is reach out and grab them. If only his hands didn’t  _ache_  so much…

So, he’s sitting there with his hands resting carefully in his lap - still,  _ow_! - and he’s waiting for the good doctors to release him so that he can go and, well, be  _somewhere else_ , and he’s just humming under his breath and looking around, contemplating idly why exactly does the Phoenix Foundation have such a well stocked infirmary and that maybe he should be a guest here less often, when Matty enters the room.

“What’s the verdict?” she asks him when she walks up to him.

Mac stares down at her for a moment, his legs now hanging limply, not dangling anymore because that would be rude and it could be seen as fidgety and Matty hates it when people fidget but she hates it even more when they don’t answer a direct question, so he gathers his fuzzy balls of brain cells and tells her, “They say the burns are healing nicely, considering.”

Matty nods. “How long till you’ll be fully functional?”

He blinks at her. One sentence and so short, too, yet she lost him somewhere on the way to the question mark at its end. “As a human being?” he asks, very confused.

Mac sees that she’s about to chew him out for his “dumb joke” but then she takes a closer look at him, at his eyes that seem to have taken a life of their own because they’re now roaming the room again instead of sticking with Matty. But there’re so many interesting things lying around, things that he has yet to take apart to figure out what makes them tick. He wonders if they would let him–

“Are you  _high_?” Matty asks and Mac’s eyes snap back to her because he can’t seem to decipher the tone of her voice. Did he hear disbelief? Uncertainty? Or maybe concern?  _What?_

“Fuzzy,” he responds honestly. Then he lifts his hands for her to see and says simply, “They  _hurt_.”

She stares at him a moment longer, then she nods slowly. “ _Right_. How about I go and talk to…  _someone else_ about this…  _stuff_. You sit here. Don’t move from this spot, understand?” She points firmly at the examination table and waits for him to nod. Then she turns and heads  _somewhere_. To ask about  _something._ She speaks in riddles, apparently.

Mac goes back to dangling his feet and cradling his hands carefully in his lap. He’s very tired. So tired in fact that his eyes keep sliding shut. He wants a nap  _so badly_. He didn’t sleep much last night. His hands kept hurting and hurting and  _hurting_ , no matter what he did. And he wants a shower, a proper shower, long and hot to wash off the mortuary smell that seems stuck in his nose since last night. And then a bed. And he isn’t whining. He’s  _not._

Sighing, Mac thinks that maybe, just maybe, he  _is_  high after all. But at least his hands finally stopped hurting. Now, they just ache. He’ll take ache over pain any day of the week. Especially today.

He sets off humming again and in some distant corner of his fuzzy, fuzzy mind he starts building a bomb from the harmless, everyday stuff lying around the infirmary. Oh, it would be a good one. Not that he would ever actually do it, build one here. Not without a good reason, that is. No, his brain just does that on its own sometimes. It picks things apart and then puts them back together again, just…  _differently_. And occasionally, behold, a  _bomb_. Jack would sure love that.

_Jack_. There was something… Mac furrows his brows. What was it?

“… but they want you to come back tomorrow for a check-up.”

_Matty_. Mac opens his eyes and sees her standing there, in front of him,  _again_. When did she come back? And when did he close his eyes for that matter? He stares at her, blinking slowly.

She must realize that he wasn’t really listening because she repeats her words, pronouncing carefully. “You can go home now. But you’ll have to come back for a check-up tomorrow. Your pills.” She shakes the bright orange bottle in her hand, making the pills inside rattle. “You need to take–”

She pauses, sighing, when she notices that his eyes started wandering again. “You know what, I’ll just explain it to Jack and have him take you home. I would send Bozer since he actually lives with you but I need him in the lab and Jack’s been hobbling around like an old goat, making a nuisance of himself, anyway. He can make sure you do as you’re told, that would be  _something_ useful.” She waves a hand dismissively.

_Jack!_  Ah, yes. “Don’t tell him, Matty,” Mac asks urgently, leaning forward a little, ordering his eyes to behave and stick with his boss for a while.

Matty raises her eyebrows. “Don’t tell him  _what_?”

Mac lifts his mittens and wiggles his fingers a little. The dull ache flares into pain again. Ow!  _Ow-ow-ow_! Not a good idea. “They said the burns are healing nicely but I still might end up with some… some…” Scrunching his forehead, he quotes carefully, “ _Limited_ …  _motor_ …  _activity_ if I’m not…  _diligent_ and do my exercises. I will. Do them, I mean. The exercises. I promise. But don’t tell Jack about the–” He wants to wiggle his fingers again to demonstrate his point but then he remembers the pain that, thankfully, dulled again and thinks better of it.

Frowning, Matty asks, “Why not?”

He looks at her as if she were slow. “Because he would feel bad. And I don’t want him to feel bad. What happened wasn’t his fault. He would still think it was. I don’t want him to think that. I don’t want him to feel guilty. Because I would do it again, to save him. This” –he lifts his mittens again– “was worth it.”

Matty stares at him for a long time, so long actually, that Mac starts feeling awkward, thinking he might’ve said something wrong. His brain really does feel fuzzy. But then her expression softens and she reaches out to rest her hand on his knee.

“I won’t tell him,” she promises in a whisper, smiling kindly. “It’ll be our secret, okay?”

Mac nods, relieved. He knows that Jack hates secrets when he’s not in on them. But if he doesn’t know that there’s a secret kept in the first place… well, then it won’t hurt him. And hurting Jack’s the last thing Mac wants.

But now, now he would really like to go home. He’s tired and he’s fuzzy and his nose itches and he can’t even scratch it properly. He wants to go to bed and sleep until everything’s back to normal again.

And he must’ve said it aloud because Matty pats his knee and says, “Alright. Let’s find Jack and get you home, Blondie.”

Good. Home’s good.


End file.
